Finally, I feel heard.

Scott Kramer

It’s nice to be heard. In my home, that doesn’t happen a lot. Until this week. That’s because I’ve been trying out a new LG TV that’s armed with Kardome Voice AI. And in a matter of just a couple of minutes, I was able to program the TV through its settings menu to hear my voice so clearly that the only reason I’d ever need to use the remote is to power on the TV with it.

When I’m laying on the couch watching hockey or a movie, I get lazy. And I really despise reaching around for the remote. So I often end up watching an unwanted show for several minutes before finally grabbing a remote to jump to the next channel. And I can’t even begin to count how many times every week we can’t even find the remote. I’ve even sunk to installing the Roku app on my phone, solely to use as a backup remote for our family room TV. I also will come into the room holding food with both hands, then have to neatly set down my drink to grab the remote and get to the right game.

But that’s in the past now. With this set, I just say “Hi, LG” and a little icon instantly appears on the bottom left of the screen indicating it’s ready for my command. Yes, this works exactly like “Hey, Siri” or “Hey, Google” but it’s a proprietary version. And it excels at focusing in on my voice, regardless of how noisy the room is. In fact, I experimented with it and left the TV volume on super high. Then I said in a normal conversation volume “Hi, LG” and it recognized I was ready to give it a command, such as telling it which app to jump to or turning the volume down. It works fluidly, for sure.

Kardome’s Spatial Hearing AI technology is commercially deployed in LG’s flagship OLED TV series, and represents a significant leap in voice user interface performance. It aims to locate and focus on individual speech with human-like accuracy, despite how noisy it is in that room. Company officials claim it can distinguish your voice from background noise, such as a vacuum cleaner, multiple people speaking simultaneously, or the TV's own playback. This allows for a more natural, seamless interaction. Behind the scenes, Spatial Hearing AI listens to the 3D acoustic environment and maps the soundscape, isolating each source and distinguishing between multiple speakers, so that devices can respond adaptively, guided by the context of their surroundings. And because it runs entirely on-device, it also ensures speed and privacy. Seemed pretty instantaneous to me.

In my testing, after a few awkward attempts, it started to become more natural for me to speak to the TV. And it seemed like commands are a little rigid right now. For instance, instead of saying “Turn on YouTube,” I just said “YouTube” and it knew what to do. While watching a video on YouTube, I asked it to jump the playback speed to 1.5. Instead, it started searching for other YouTube videos on speed.

While this current integration focuses on Spatial Hearing AI technology for TVs, both companies continue to explore further expansion into smart appliances, audio products, and the automotive sector – according to Kardome. And the lazy part of me is excited to see what it comes up with.